


s novim godom!

by kingblake



Category: Anastasia (1997)
Genre: New Years, Please Don't Hate Me, Russian Culture, canon-divergent, i'm so sorry this is so short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 03:15:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13158090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingblake/pseuds/kingblake
Summary: anastasia and her family celebrate the new year.





	s novim godom!

**Author's Note:**

> for anastasia -- merry christmas. thank you for being my muse.
> 
>  
> 
> dancing bears, painted wings  
> things i almost remember  
> and a song someone sings  
> once upon a december

 

Memory can be fickle, and Anya knows this better than almost anyone. 

 

She’s never been sure of when her ‘past’ had started -- had it been when she was born, or had it been when she’d woken, pale and sweaty, in the bed of the orphanage that she would call home for the better part of her teenage life? She’d lost her identity and her family in some freak accident that nobody seemed to know anything about -- and now, her arms pressed tightly across her chest, she thinks that Dimitri Sudayev has no place  _ ‘forgetting’ _ his exit visa at their most recent hotel. 

 

They’d been standing in line, waiting to be checked onto their train. He’d rummaged through his leather knapsack, fingers searching for that worn blue folder, when his eyes had grown wide and he’d glanced at his feet like a dog waiting to be scolded. “I left our papers at the hotel,” he’d muttered, and then without much prompting from either Anya or Vladimir he’d scuttled away like a crab.

 

Now, Anya stands impatiently outside the ticket booth, one leg extended like an ant’s feeler into the walkway. She throws an elbow --  _ subtly, mind you  _ \-- when anyone tries to step over her foot in order to approach the teller. The teller is knocking on the glass -- “Buy a ticket or get out of the line,” he says, but Anya pretends that she can’t hear him.

 

It’s the turning of the new year in Russia -- a time of hustle and bustle and busy families and irritable wives with fistfuls of packaging and paper bags. The train stations are packed with travelers and tourists and women and men of all shapes and sizes. But these women -- Anya knows, better than anyone, that these are the wives of wealthy husbands and prosperous families. 

 

At the orphanage, the new year had been celebrated like any other holiday -- the children had been offered a temporary reprieve from chores in light of the start of a ‘new generation’, and the older denizens of the orphanage had been allowed a swig or two from a single bottle of cheap wine. But these women are graced with whole loaves of bread, soft fabrics, dresses sewn from the richest silk and velvet. They’re dressed in fur coats and large, round hats that make them look as if a raccoon has suddenly decided to nest on their head, and between their impatient foot tapping and the mumble of the men jostling one another to move forwards, the line outside of the ticket booth has a voice that’s on the verge of crescendoing to a roar.

 

Anya is growing tense -- knocking feet aside, glaring at those entitled women -- when she hears the slap of hard rubber against snowy cobblestone. She shivers, looks up, stands on her toes to see down the line. Dimitri has returned -- arms flapping, coat billowing like a sail behind him -- with the visas in his hand and snow dusting his shoulders. Vladimir sighs with relief beside Anya. 

 

She’d said nothing to him, but she knows that he’d felt just as anxious as she had. Anya rests her hand against his arm as Dimitri skids to a stop beside them and stuffs the visas into the slot under the teller’s window like he’s decided that the visas are about to explode. Despite the cold, a bead of sweat gathers on his temple and crests his jaw before slipping beneath his collar. Anya snorts.

 

“The hotel was a block away. It’s cold. How are you sweating right now?” Her voice comes out in a hiss, and Dimitri ignores her as he thanks the teller and the entire line leaps forward like a herd of irritated leopards. 

 

“I’d like to see you run it as fast as I did, missy.”

 

“You were gone for fifteen minutes.”

 

“No,” He says, not taking his eyes away from the window, “You’re just horrendously impatient.”

 

Anya scowls. She feels the strong urge to punch him in his stupid mouth and she’s busy pushing up her sleeves when Vladimir takes Dimitri by the collar and pushes him onto the train. “Not now,” he says, his voice a veritable growl. He speaks in the tone that Anya had come to know from the patron of her orphanage -- the old, rat-faced woman with scraggly gray hair and piercing black eyes. It’s a scolding tone, used for unruly children -- or dogs. “I swear, you two act like toddlers sometimes.” He takes Anya by the elbow and gently ushers her up the steps. 

 

When Vlad turns his back, Anya sticks her tongue out at Dimitri. Abandoning all sense of professionalism, the con man turns and does the same -- only to catch the scrutinizing gaze of one of those rich wives as she scurries past them, arms full of velvet and expensive bottles of wine. Dimitri turns almost as red as the upholstery of the train and the three of them duck into their little cabin, a thick silence between them.

 

It’s only after Anya situates herself -- propped against the wall, her bare feet crossed delicately in Dimitri’s lap, Pooka lying across her legs -- that she looks out the window and watches as the train sighs, sucks in a breath, and then begins to chug determinedly out of the station and into the snowy white abyss of the Russian countryside.  

 

Becoming the Grand Duchess is exhausting. Day in and day out Vlad and Dimitri have been drilling her on history, family, and certain ‘techniques’ that frankly, seem useless. How to clip on her own pearls? ( _ Doesn’t  _ everyone _ know how to do that? _ ) How to play tennis without looking like she’s in pain? ( _ Why do the Romanovs love tennis so much? _ ) How to sing in the shower without it coming across as a caterwaul? ( _ Absolutely ridiculous. _ )

 

The Russian countryside crawls by in an endless sheet of blinding white. Anya almost gets up to take a closer look -- she wants to fog up the glass with her breath, draw a smile in the window, and turn to see what Vlad thinks -- when she’s stopped by Dimitri, who’s waving yet another history book under her nose. 

 

“Wake up, Anya,” He says in a singsongy voice, and yet again, the overwhelming urge to sock him in the nose ripples up and down her arms. “It’s time to learn about your great uncle’s family. Gregori has some pretty sweet bloodlines going on here.”

 

“No!” She shouts. She’s used to shouting at him, but there’s a hint of desperation in her voice that she hasn’t known in quite some time. “It’s the new year, and I’m sitting on a train with  _ you _ and Vlad. I haven’t gotten to celebrate a real new year since -- “

 

She can’t remember. She’s only ever known the orphanage. “Since ever.” 

 

In a burst of energy, she leaps to her feet, startling both Pooka and Vlad. “I’m going to go celebrate, because God knows I need it.” Sweeping out of the cabin, she pounds down the hallway of the train. She makes for the dining car, because there’s  _ bound _ to be some wine somewhere, and on her way, she catches glimpses of families through cabin windows -- laughing, napping, reading with one another,  _ together  _ \-- despite the fact that they’re on a train instead of dancing in the streets and watching fireworks and exchanging gifts. 

 

When Anya gets to the dining car, she grabs an unattended bottle of wine with her left hand and a bucket of ice with her right. It’s not much of a celebratory meal, and she might have to come back later for a few sweet rolls and chocolate candies. 

  
For now, however, she and Vlad and Dimitri are going to celebrate -- the rebirth of the world and a reset of everyone who lives on it. They’ll chat and laugh until the sun falls behind the hills and then they’ll each drop into a dreamless sleep -- but it’ll be okay, because even if Anya’s not in the streets or watching fireworks explode against a blanket of velvet black sky, she’s with her family. 

 

It’s little, strange, disagreeable -- but they’re her family. And they’re going to spend this new year  _ together. _

**Author's Note:**

> <3


End file.
